MASSILLON

20th century

The Forest City Motor Company was founded in Cleveland in 1906 but relocated to Massillon that same year. Forest City produced approximately 1,000 of their Jewel automobiles in Massillon between 1906 and 1909. The name of the company was changed to the Jewel Motor Car Company but the company eventually ceased production in 1909.

Although steelmaking and fabrication is found throughout its history, some say Massillon's steel age didn't start until 1909, when the first sheet of steel was rolled at the Massillon Rolling Mill Company. Massillon Rolling merged into the Central Steel Company in 1914, and lit its first open hearth furnace in 1915. Central Steel eventually became known as the Central Alloy Steel Company. In April 1930, Central Alloy merged with Republic Steel, becoming the third largest steel company in the world, with its Massillon operations employing nearly one-half of the city's workforce by 1959. This included other Massillon divisions like Massillon Union Drawn Steel and its stainless steel division Enduro Stainless. In 1984 Republic Steel was purchased by LTV Steel. Enduro closed in 1985, and it and other stainless plants went through several ownership changes over the following 15 years. The main Republic facilities on the southwest side of Massillon closed by 2002.

Stanley Macomber designed the open-web steel joist in 1921 while working for Massillon's Central Steel Company. Macomber left Central Steel and founded the Massillon Steel Joist Co. in 1923. His open-web steel joist, patented in 1924, was known as the Massillon Steel Joist. Macomber's invention was a revolutionary assembly of steel joists with a top slab used to support of floors, ceilings and roofs. The basis of Macomber's steel joist design is still used today. Stanley Macomber was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame in 2011.

Lincoln Highway, the first U.S. highway to run from coast to coast, was envisioned in 1913 and followed Main Street through the center of Massillon. Main Street was eventually renamed Lincoln Way in recognition of the new highway. In 1928, the federal government renamed Lincoln Highway to U.S. 30. A controlled access freeway was constructed in 1971, bypassing U.S. 30 around to the city's most southern part. The old Lincoln Highway that runs through Massillon and Canton was reassigned as State Route 172.

Massillon was a site where one of the most tragic instances of anti-union violence in the history of the United States occurred, during the Little Steel strike of 1937. The Steel Workers Organizing Committee began an attempt to organize workers at Republic Steel in the spring of 1937, following the unionizing of workers at the country's two largest steel companies US Steel and Jones & Laughlin Steel. In retaliation, Republic Steel expelled over 1000 union supporters at plants in Canton and Massillon. On May 26, the union eventually called for all workers at Republic Steel, Youngstown Sheet and Tube, and Inland Steel (together known as Little Steel) to strike in response to the treatment of workers in Massillon and Canton. On the night of July 11, 1937, a car failed to dim its headlights as it approached a police barricade near a picket line at one of the Massillon plants. City police assumed the worst and without warning opened fire with rifles and shotguns. Police then used this infraction to raid a peaceful crowd that was gathered in front of the union headquarters. Police pumped tear gas canisters and opened fire into the fleeing crowd. Joined by National Guardsmen, the police destroyed the union hall and arrested every suspected unionist they could find. Three men were killed and hundreds were injured during this incident.

Ohio Historical Marker #18–76 was erected in 2004 in front of the Massillon City Hall in memory of the Little Steel Strike of 1937.

Jacob S. Coxey, Sr., sometimes known as General Coxey of Massillon, was an American politician who ran for elective office several times in Ohio. He twice led Coxey's Army, in 1894 and 1914, consisting of a group of unemployed men that he led on marches from Massillon to Washington, D.C., to present a "Petition in Boots" demanding that the Congress allocate funds to create jobs for the unemployed. Although his march failed, Coxey's Army was an early attempt to arouse political interest in an issue that grew in importance until the Social Security Act of 1935 encouraged the establishment of state unemployment insurance programs. Jacob Coxey was elected mayor of Massillon in 1931 and served one year.